Palmerton Hospital, Doctor Settle Man's Malpractice Suit

A Lehighton man yesterday received an unspecified amount in a malpractice suit against Palmerton Hospital and one of its doctors.

Minutes before a jury trial was to begin yesterday morning, lawyers representing Andrew A. Mertz in the civil suit reached a settlement with lawyers for the hospital and Dr. Hyder Raza.

The hospital and doctor admitted liability. Therefore, a jury would have decided only how much money Mertz should receive.

Terms of the settlement were not made public.

The suit stemmed from surgery Raza performed on Mertz in 1986.

According to court documents, on June 25, 1986, Mertz fractured his right femur when the school bus he was repairing at his garage fell onto him. He was taken to Palmerton Hospital, where, documents show, he instructed a doctor that he did not want Raza to perform surgery.

Nevertheless, two days later Raza operated, inserting a metal rod into Mertz's upper right leg and doing other procedures.

Mertz, discharged from the hospital July 4, 1986, suffered constant pain in his right leg and knee. In October 1987, documents show, Mertz suffered pain so intense that he fainted. He was admitted to Lehigh Valley Hospital, Salisbury Township, Oct. 4, 1987.

Two days later, Dr. David B. Sussman performed a second operation. The metal rod Raza had inserted had broken.

Sussman grafted bone and inserted another piece of metal to allow the bone to heal. Experts determined that the rod Raza inserted was too short.

Court documents show that Mertz's right leg is now one-half inch shorter than his left leg.

At the time of his injury, Mertz was 59 and worked as a train car inspector for Conrail and also as a self-employed mechanic. His weekly income was $734. Because his leg did not heal, Mertz lost his job with Conrail and could no longer work as a mechanic.

His pension from Conrail is $279 a month.

In the suit, Mertz said he had planned to work until 1994, when he would have turned 65. Had he retired at 65, he said, his Conrail pension would have been $927 a month.

In addition to having lost the income, Mertz said that when his employment with Conrail ended, so did his medical benefits, worth about $1,800 annually.